Transfigurations

Welcome to Transfigurations! This blog is intended to serve the orthodox Anglican community and the wider Christian community. We pray that all that is posted here will be faithful to the Scriptures as the inspired word of God, speak the truth in love, edify, bless and transform this local body of Christ, and be an impetus for revival, repentance, prayer and intercession!

Monday, February 29, 2016

Everything that God brings into our life...

Everything that God brings into our life is directed to one purpose: that we might be conformed to the image of Christ. ...Erwin Lutzer image

Anglican Unscripted Episode 219

Feb 29, 2016

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

Muslims make up 647 of the 651 Syrian refugees--or 99 percent of the total.

634 of the refugees (or 97.3 percent) of the 651 Syrian refugees approved for resettlement since the Paris attacks are Sunni Muslims. The remainder include three Shi’ites, ten others described as Muslims but without any further details, and one refugee identified in Refugee Processing Center data as “other religion.”...

The post was brought to the attention of the faculty at Sheffield. Following a Faculty of Social Sciences "fitness to practise" committee hearing, he was advised he has been "excluded from further study on a programme leading to a professional qualification" and is "no longer recognised as a University student".

This was because the committee believed that he "may have caused offence to some individuals" and had "transgressed boundaries which are not deemed appropriate for someone entering the social work profession." His action would have an effect on his "ability to carry out a role as a social worker," the committee said...

Titled "Don’t be a Puppet," the site tries to deconstruct some of the motivating factors that lead people into extremism. It’s aimed for use in high schools or other programs for teenagers.

The website was originally slated to launch in November 2015, but did not, following criticisms from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). At the time, CAIR expressed concerns about a new FBI “countering violent extremism” (CVE) online program that would make teachers an extension of law enforcement and may stigmatize and increase bullying of Muslim students.”...

Most euthanasia deaths linked to loneliness, says Dutch study ...The study by the National Institute of Health also revealed that the Netherlands was operating a de facto policy of euthanasia on demand, with patients “shopping” for doctors willing to give them a lethal injection for the most trivial of reasons.

Many of them used euthanasia clinics and mobile units willing to over-ride decisions of family doctors who believed that a death wish could not be justified.

The research, led by Dr Scott Kim, cited the case of a woman of good mental and physical health who was killed by lethal injection because she felt lonely following the death of her husband a year earlier...

Scientists have yet to confirm the cause, but experts are suggesting that the Earth may be emitting the dangerous gas via seismic fault lines – cracks in the earth’s surface where tectonic plates rub against each other...

Pornography is becoming a primary sex educator for boys and young men, displacing explanations from parents, formal instruction in schools, and even conversations with peers. However, what they learn from pornography websites is kinky practices which strip sex of intimacy, loving affection and human connection. And they learn that women are always ready for sex and have insatiable sexual appetites.

Women feel betrayed by men who use pornography. Most often men conceal their use of pornography. When a partner discovers it, she often feels as if he was having an affair. Pornography use decreases intimacy and makes women feel less attractive and more like mere sexual objects.Pornography may become an addiction. Flood is cautious about analogies to drug addiction. He points out that attachment ranges from recreational users to compulsive and self-destructive users. However, as with other addictions, some people experience social, work or financial difficulties because they use pornography...

How to Slay the Dragon of Pornography
...So many resolutions to avoid porn fail with this first question. The how question is the easier one—we can quickly identify steps such as Internet filters or a friend willing to ask us tough questions. It’s the why where we get tripped up. We need biblically persuasive reasons to stand firm when the hard questions and justifications come.

And they will come:

•Why bother? It doesn’t hurt anyone.
•If my wife were sexually more available or adventurous, I wouldn’t need this.
•If I had a wife, I wouldn’t need this.
•All men look at porn. It’s how we were created. How can God give me the desire and then expect me to fight it?
•This next time will be the last time...

Planned Parenthood head: I appreciate Trump's 'kind words' Planned Parenthood's president on Wednesday thanked Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for saying the women’s healthcare organization does “good work” outside of abortions, even as she criticized him as wrong on most issues...

Boko Haram Attacks Christians Almost Daily in Cameroon Christians in Cameroon say they suffer persecution from the Islamist terror group Boko Haram on a near-daily basis. “Every day there are suicide bombers, there is theft of cattle, there are killings and kidnapping of people and theft of goods,” a source in Cameroon told Christian humanitarian agency Barnabas Aid.

After ramping up its violent jihad in 2009, Boko Haram has committed extraordinary bloodshed in an effort to establish an Islamic state. The group has killed 20,000 people, kidnapped 2,000 women and children, and displaced 2.8 million residents, according to Barnabas....

The Refugee Hostel: Germany's Islamist Hell ...In fact, life in German refugee hostels has now become so unbearable thatreligious minorities, women traveling alone or with children, and homosexuals are fleeing their accommodations. For them, according to one paper, the word "hostel" has become synonymous with ‘"defenselessness".

The constant harassment and mistreatment at the hands of Muslim male refugees is not only becoming intolerable and dangerous, but, for some, life-threatening.

“Torn bibles and insults, ripped off crosses and even blows to the face, the complaints about violence in the refugee centers do not let up,” the German newspaper, Die Welt, stated recently...

The Day I Saw Jesus I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, so I didn’t grow up hearing about the God I now call Father. To me, God was just an abstract concept or idea, and church was mostly a place where Korean families got together to gossip about college acceptances and share strategies on conquering the SAT.

My parents never told me about the God who says “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” but, like many children, I certainly knew what it meant to be forsaken.

At the age of 9, my father left our family and wouldn’t return (besides an annual visit or two) for the next twenty years. His absence became the new normal, and I came to idolize the idea of the “picture-perfect” family...

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

A.S. Haley: Three Sobering Reads

My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their minds are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten its origins and aims, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference about itself....

We have fallen into the bad and unquestioned habit of thinking that our educational system is broken, but it is working on all cylinders. What our educational system aims to produce is cultural amnesia, a wholesale lack of curiosity, historyless free agents, and educational goals composed of contentless processes and unexamined buzz-words like “critical thinking,” “diversity,” “ways of knowing,” “social justice,” and “cultural competence.” Our students are the achievement of a systemic commitment to producing individuals without a past for whom the future is a foreign country, cultureless ciphers who can live anywhere and perform any kind of work without inquiring about its purposes or ends, perfected tools for an economic system that prizes “flexibility” (geographic, interpersonal, ethical). In such a world, possessing a culture, a history, an inheritance, a commitment to a place and particular people, specific forms of gratitude and indebtedness (rather than a generalized and deracinated commitment to “social justice”), a strong set of ethical and moral norms that assert definite limits to what one ought and ought not to do (aside from being “judgmental”) are hindrances and handicaps. Regardless of major or course of study, the main object of modern education is to sand off remnants of any cultural or historical specificity and identity that might still stick to our students, to make them perfect company men and women for a modern polity and economy that penalizes deep commitments. Efforts first to foster appreciation for “multi-culturalism” signaled a dedication to eviscerate any particular cultural inheritance, while the current fad of “diversity” signals thoroughgoing commitment to de-cultured and relentless homogenization.

Uganda to boycott ACC meeting in Lusaka

24 Feb 2016
George Conger

The Church of Uganda will boycott the April meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Lusaka. In a letter dated 23 Feb 2016 the Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Rev. Stanley said comments made by ACC chairman Dr. James Tengatenga -- first reported by Anglican Ink -- that the Americans could not be kept away from the meeting, and statements by Episcopal Church leaders that they would pay no heed to the primates’ call that their church withdraw from pan-Anglican bodies for three years inevitably led to this outcome

Distrust over the efficacy of American promises of good behavior were a long standing problem in the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Ntagali said. He cited the 2003 incident where Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold promised not to consecrate Gene Robinson, an undertaking given at the emergency primates meeting held at Lambeth Palace, and his decision shortly thereafter to serve as Robinson’s chief consecrator.

The primates “felt so betrayed. We wondered how the TEC Presiding Bishop could agree that their consecration should not proceed – how he could agree that if he presided at that consecration that it would tear the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level – and then immediately turn around and announce that he would do it anyway. It was a double betrayal – betraying the clear message of the Bible and betraying an agreement the Primates had made unanimously... the rest

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Adjusting to the Pass/No-Fail of Lent; Little Sisters Of The Poor Prepare To Defend Themselves...more

Adjusting to the Pass/No-Fail of Lent When I’m Used to All “A”s I thought maybe I’d found a Lenten sacrifice cheat sheet this winter when I was reading The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973-1983. In an entry dated Tuesday, Jan. 20, 1981, Fr. Schmemann considers what instructions he would give someone eager to be part of a monastic revival. He lays out a rule of daily living:
• always go to the same church, and try to be a real helper, not by lecturing about spiritual life or icons, not by teaching but with a “dust rag” (cf. St. Seraphim of Sarov). Keep at that kind of service and be — in church matters — totally obedient to the parish priest;

• do not thrust yourself and your service on anyone; do not be sad that your talents are not being used; be helpful; serve where you are needed and not where you think you are needed;

• if friends and acquaintances invite you because they are close to you, go, but not too often and within reason. Never stay more than one and a half or two hours. After that the friendliest atmosphere becomes harmful;

• be always simple, light, joyous. Do not teach. Avoid like the plague any “spiritual” conversations and any religious or churchly idle talk. If you act that way, everything will be to your benefit...

Muslim takeover of campus all-faith quiet room causes uproar at German university...Visitors complained that Muslim students blocked off more than half the room and had used a large picture hanging on the wall to do so. This, apparently, was done to segregate the sexes. The noise from the Muslim students’ praying also kept the “Quiet Room” from being quiet. Besides prayer rugs, Korans were also stored there with one left out in the open. Besides the Koran, “flyers in Arabic and instructional pamphlets in German” were displayed. Calling the rearrangement of the room “highhanded,” Prost said “foot washing possibilities” were also present...

The US military, which employs millions offers a family insurance plan exempt from the mandate.

There is an easy solution that protects the Little Sisters’ religious freedom and the right of the government to offer these services to women who want them. Rather than trying to force religious plans to offer these services, the better solution is for the government to provide these services through the ACA healthcare exchange to any employees who want them but can’t get them through employer plans...

During the three-day operation that began Feb. 11, the Cameroonian force freed about 100 captives held by the militants, including Nigerians and Cameroonians. Two members of Cameroon’s military were killed, including a senior commander...

Church Planting Mathematics: 10 x 100 > 1 x 1000? ...Most of us have probably thought, at some time or another, that it would be better to seek out and call an extraordinarily gifted man who will be able to plant a large, fast growing church in a metropolis than it would be to call a man with ordinary gifts to plant in a rural setting. There are, however, only so many men who have the unique gift set and/or the resources and situational dynamic necessary to plant a 1000+ member church–even in a city. There are, however, many godly and faithful men with ministerial gifts who are ready and able to use them to advance the kingdom of God by planting smaller, but healthy and steadily growing churches. The advantage of calling a man to plant a church that will reach 1000+ is that there will be, in turn, many more resources for ministry both inside the church as well as potential for more widespread Gospel outreach and influence in the community. However, there are quite a number of benefits of planting 10 church plants that will reach 100+ throughout a geographical region. Here are 4 such benefits that can be gained by adopting this approach...

Anglican Unscripted Episode 218

Feb 17, 2016Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

The tiny Isle of Bute in the Firth of Clyde, which had a total population of just 6,498 in 2011, is expected to take in around 1,000 Syrian migrants, with 12 families already arriving since December last year...

However, commenting on the comparatively huge and sudden influx of Muslim immigrants online just became a very risky business for local residents.

Police have confirmed they have arrested a 41-year-old local man under the Communications Act, after receiving a report of a supposedly “offensive” comment made on Facebook regarding the migrants...

With pressure mounting, the State Department in October leaked word that an official genocide designation would be forthcoming but made clear that State would recognize only a Yazidi genocide and not one against Christians. This prompted Congress to mandate that Secretary John Kerry make a determination by March 16 on the precise question of whether “persecution . . . of Christians and people of other religions in the Middle East by violent Islamic extremists . . . constitutes genocide.”

While other administrations have committed the sin of silence where genocide was concerned, none has officially signaled that it believes a brutally persecuted and displaced minority is not suffering ongoing genocide. Yet that would be the effect of excluding the Christians from an official listing of genocide victims. Despite foreseeable harm this would cause these Christians, the administration appears on track to do just that...

GAFCON chairman's Lenten pastoral letter

18 Feb 2016
Archbishop Eliud Wabukala

My dear brothers and sisters,

Receive Christian greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, the Servant King. I am so grateful to you for being faithful in prayer as we met with the other Anglican Primates in Canterbury last month and to the many who sent messages of encouragement and support.

During this Lenten season we walk with the Lord Jesus on his road to the cross and we cannot fail to be aware of Jesus’ clear sense of purpose. Luke tells us that ‘Jesus set his face’. He knew his destiny and never wavered in fulfilling God’s costly yet wonderful plan of salvation. Even as he prays in agony in Gethsemane, he is fully surrendered to the Father’s will.

While we can all go to Jerusalem in heart and mind, some of you will have unforgettable memories of being physically present in Jerusalem in 2008 as the GAFCON movement was birthed. After years of frustration, as the Anglican Communion seemed to fall into deeper confusion and disarray, here was a moment of joy and hope.

Ever since, God has graciously used this movement as we have built upon the solid foundation of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration which was one of the lasting fruits of that time together. It shone the light of God’s Word into the fog of confusion that had descended upon the Anglican Communion and enabled us to chart a way forward.

For the GAFCON Primates in Canterbury last month, it was the light shining from Jerusalem that enabled us to give a lead in the steps taken to sanction the Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC) as a step towards restoring godly faith and order. Sadly, the meeting had hardly finished before it was made very clear that there would be no repentance or change of direction on the part of TEC and their delegation to the Anglican Consultative Council Meeting in April expect it to be business as usual.

As the GAFCON Vice Chairman, Archbishop Okoh of Nigeria, has already said, it is now clear that nothing has changed as a result of the Canterbury meeting. The fabric of the Communion is still badly torn and there can be no true walking together until there is repentance for what is acknowledged even by TEC as a breach of core doctrine. There is a strong possibility that this year we shall see other Provinces taking the same step.

Some of you are asking what GAFCON’s approach will be during the three years that TEC are subject to sanctions and what will happen at the end of that time, given that TEC appear to have moved well beyond the possibility of changing course.

At our Primates Council in April, we will take counsel together on these matters, but I can say that all of us in the GAFCON movement need to set our faces to go to Jerusalem. While we honour Canterbury as the mother See of the Anglican Communion, it was at Jerusalem that we placed our hope for the future in Jesus and the truth of the Bible. The Jerusalem Statement and Declaration reflects that reality and expresses the core truths that guide us today: the rise of a false gospel in the Anglican Communion, that our identity is found first and foremost in the faith we confess, the need to support and recognise those who have been excluded from their Anglican homes, and the duty to reject the authority of churches and leaders who deny orthodox faith in word or deed.

In a compromised Communion these are not comfortable truths, but we must set our faces to Jerusalem and keep to them, because this is the way of the cross and therefore of true resurrection.

Finally, may I ask you to remember especially in your prayers the people of Uganda as they go to the polls in a presidential election on 18th February. Pray that there will be honesty, calmness and restraint, that whatever leadership results will be a blessing to all the people of Uganda, and for my brother GAFCON Primate Archbishop Ntagali as he and other Christian leaders urge their their people to pray and to pursue peace.

Archbishop Eliud Wabukala,
Primate of Kenya and Chairman of the GAFCON Primates CouncilHere

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Canon Phil Ashey: Anglicanism in spite of Canterbury?

Posted February 17, 2016

I read with some interest the remarks of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, on the Primates gathering we returned from just a few weeks ago. In his recent address to the Church of England’s General Synod he made a number of significant statements—significant because they are signs of the future that lies ahead for a deeply divided Anglican Communion. You can find his whole address here, but let me focus on three significant statements:

1. “The meeting was set for Canterbury because that would recall to people the way in which Canterbury, and especially its cathedral, represent the center of the Anglican Communion.”

Really? Is the center of the Anglican Communion really an Archbishop, or a Cathedral? For the vast majority of Anglicans now living in the Global South, the center of the Anglican Communion is where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, where the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” is being accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit, and where peoples’ lives are being transformed spiritually, emotionally and physically by the love of Jesus Christ. The center of the Anglican Communion is where Jesus is being exalted as Savior and Lord, and where people are faithfully living their lives as Jesus would according to the Scriptures. And if that place has a geographic center, it is the Global South—not Canterbury.

Elsewhere the Archbishop of Canterbury rightly observed: “What are the limits of diversity? Who is in control? British colonial history makes the laying down of edicts by white, middle-class Christians from the Global North, citizens of the former colonial power in many places, a process that is rightly deeply resented.” But in claiming himself and Canterbury as the center, is he not contradicting himself and simply reasserting continuity with that British colonial past? Shouldn’t we be wary of a leader who says that we should avoid old “colonial ways”—and then insists that his See, Canterbury, is the hub around which the Communion revolves?

In reality, it was the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and Global South Primates who had to take leadership in this Primates gathering to get any “limits on diversity,” and any “relational consequences” at all upon The Episcopal Church (TEC) for its actions since 2003 in unilaterally violating Biblically teaching on human sexuality, along with Lambeth Resolution 1.10 (1998)...

In a letter to a leading Anglican gay rights campaigner, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said that Church's teaching on sexuality was a “matter for discussion” during a series of special meetings being held behind closed doors.

“Are the Americans going there? Yes. Are they going there to be rude?”

They were not, he said “because it is their right and responsibility” to attend the meeting.
“Are they going to vote? Yes, they are going to vote as it is their right and responsibility,” the ACC chairman said...

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Archbishop Welby reflects on Primates’ meeting in Synod address

Hawaii: dengue fever emergency: The religious right is being left behind...more

The religious right is being left behind ...Perhaps the biggest impact may be on demographics. There is, as demographer Wendell Cox has demonstrated with regard to the United States, a direct connection between religiosity and birth rates. The two global regions with the least religious engagement, Europe and East Asia, already suffer very low birth rates and hyperpaced societal aging. In contrast, virtually all religions, whether Hindu, monotheistic or Confucianism-based, are familialistic – much of the rituals of religious life center on kinship. Secularism, however, turns many of these values upside-down. It simply cannot, as author Eric Kauffman puts it, “inspire the commitment to generations past and sacrifices for those yet to come.”...

Tim Challies: Sex on the Silver Screen
...Nakedness and sexuality are common themes in today’s movies and television. It seems increasingly rare to find a movie or show that doesn’t have at least one lingering shot of nudity or one steamy scene of passion. And even while so many Christians feel freedom to watch it all, I am increasingly convinced that we should not. I am increasingly convinced that Christians should avoid watching movies with scenes of nudity and sexuality. There are many reasons for this, but today I will constrain myself to just one—one that I have found particularly compelling and convicting.

Let’s begin here: What we see on the screen is both fact and fiction. When it comes to nakedness and sex in movies, we sometimes lose the fact in the fiction. What we watch is a fictional story, but one that has been acted out in real ways by real people. This has important implications when it comes to a bedroom scene. To film that scene, real people had to remove real clothes, bare real bodies, touch each other in real places, and move together in a real bed. It may not have been full-on sexual intercourse, but it still involved real acts between real people. The reason sex scenes look real is that to a large degree they are real. Those are not fake breasts you see, the actors are not exchanging fake kisses or fake caresses, she is not pretending to straddle him...

The BBC has become obsessed with sex ...I know it’s expecting a lot, but imagine for a minute, if you can, that we live in a sane world – a world in which the national broadcasting channel had other things on its mind than the twelve-month US presidential campaign, the mawkish and extensive coverage of the deaths of pop-stars and the tawdriness of the film and TV awards. It’s instructive, by the way, to notice that the annual presentations of tat to tat are called awards ceremonies. But that is exactly what they are: the pseudo-religious rites of our decadent and solipsistic consumerism. But please, if you can, suspend your disbelief for a second and imagine the modern world as a better place. Further, imagine the BBC as an intelligent, knowledgeable institution with an interest in matters a little higher than the bread and circuses of pop trash. If you can manage to imagine that, then ask yourself what sort of questions the guys and gals on Panorama might have asked...

There have been no locally transmitted cases of the Zika virus in Hawaii, Ige said in a news conference Friday. But there's concern that the islands could be at risk because mosquitoes that can carry dengue fever also can carry the Zika virus...

The incident has led to both a political and a personal backlash against the mostly Middle Eastern and North African asylum seekers that flooded the country last year.

Numerous migrants reported being attacked themselves randomly in the wake of the Cologne assaults, and Chancellor Angela Merkel's soaring popularity took a major nosedive afterwards. The Cologne sexual assaults even almost led to an international incident with Russia...

Monday, February 15, 2016

Justice Scalia-A Giant Has Fallen...other news

A.S. Haley: Antonin Scalia, RIP
In today's highly polarized political atmosphere, the death of a sitting Supreme Court Justice is a guaranteed flash point. To have a sitting conservative Justice like Antonin Scalia die in an election year, however, in which different parties control the White House and Congress, is a true test of our political system.

Justice Scalia's was one of the most articulate and penetrating intellects ever to grace the Court. His colleagues could disagree with him, but that was because he always made it perfectly clear where he stood. He never knuckled under to public pressure or opinion polls, and for nearly 30 years he applied his originalist jurisprudence consistently to the cases that came before him....

The Economist:A judge’s death starts a political battle IT HAS been 11 years since an American Supreme Court justice has died while on the bench. And the death of that judge, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, had much narrower political and legal repercussions than the surprise demise of Antonin Scalia, the court’s longest-serving justice and most acerbic conservative, who has died in his sleep, promises to.

In 2005, George W. Bush was simply able to nominate John Roberts, another conservative, to succeed Mr Rehnquist. Barack Obama, now in the last year of his presidency, would love to nominate a justice in the mould of Mr Scalia’s fellow opera-lover, liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Such an appointment could tip the balance on the court decidedly toward the left for a generation or more. But any nominee must be confirmed by the Senate, and with an intransigent Republican majority there, there is no chance Mr Obama would try to do that...

How Scalia Inspired a Generation to Defend the Constitution ...Perhaps Justice Scalia’s most important contribution to a generation of lawyers, and to our legal system, was his articulation and defense of a theory of constitutional interpretation called originalism. Originalism says that judges should interpret the Constitution according to its “original meaning,” which is the public meaning of the text when it was ratified. For instance, to ascertain the meaning of “religion” in the First Amendment, an originalist will identify the public meaning of the word religion in 1791 by looking at historical evidence...

To the fury of critics who say the play is deeply offensive, the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, will not block the staging of The Gospel According To Jesus, Queen Of Heaven.

The one-woman play by Jo Clifford, an award-winning Scottish playwright who has herself changed gender, imagines Jesus returning to earth as a 'trans woman' and retelling the parables with a transsexual slant...

Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres of the Anglican Church and Cardinal Vincent Nichols of England and Wales of the Catholic Church spoke at Hampton Court Palace, the venue of Henry VIII's separation with Rome.

The Telegraph reported that the two churches now recognize they share a "common agenda," and in order to face problems in the age of secularism they would need to abate hundreds of years of division...

Machete-wielding Muslim injures multiple patrons at restaurant owned by pro-Israel Arab Christian The owner is an “outspoken Christian” from Israel. “Inside the restaurant, guests are greeted by…a small Israeli flag.” Yet “Columbus police Sgt. Rich Weiner said ‘right now there’s nothing that leads us to believe that this is anything but a random attack.'” Nonsense. If Rich Weiner were as knowledgeable about Islam and jihad as he (and all others like him) should be, he would know exactly what this was — especially since Mohammad Barry later lunged at police with his machete and a knife. Israel, Arab Christians, police — three prime targets of the jihad...

[S]everal of these [100-plus] mosques have been raided, revealing a "staggering" number of weapons and ammunition. Sunday, authorities conducted a raid on a mosque in Lagny-sur-Marne, 18 miles east of Paris, and uncovered 334 weapons and a large quantity of 7.62mm Kalashnikov ammunition, along with ISIS propaganda videos.

Police also turned up recordings of chants "glorifying the martyrs of jihad linked to the terrorist organization Jabhat al-Nusra," the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. The chants were found among teaching materials for youth in a madrassa, or private religious school for boys, connected to the mosque.

Although this story has not been widely reported, it should further fuel debate about the nature of Islam and the effects of wide-scale Muslim migration into the West. This has been a major topic recently, with presidential contender Donald Trump suggesting that Muslim immigration should be suspended until we can “figure out what's going on.”...

Friday, February 12, 2016

Each time, before you intercede...

"Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things, ‘above all that we ask or think’. Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!"
...Andrew Murray

The UN stamps depict male and female same-sex couples kissing and embracing, a homosexual coming out of a closet, a gay couple carrying a girl on their shoulders, and a human butterfly figure representing a transsexual.

They were unveiled in the atrium of the General Assembly Hall before a massive painting of naked figures swaying around a fire and a nude statue of Poseidon with outstretched arm, gifts of Mexico and Greece—a location likely chosen for its suggestive qualities, as events are not normally held there...

Oldest Surviving Copy of Hebrew Bible Recognized as UNESCO World Treasure ...The Codex is believed to have been written somewhere around the year 930 in the town of Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. It has been moved around through several different cities, and as many as 190 pages are missing from the surviving copy, though scholars disagree where and when they were lost.

It was smuggled out of Syria and arrived in Israel in 1958, before it was eventually moved to the Israel Museum in the mid-1980s...

Don’t Be Embarrassed by Your Ordinary Church ...Here is the bottom-line reality: the church is the most important organization on the planet. Its importance and inherent value is not dependent upon size but substance. Let’s remember that the church has the highest calling on the planet. Her job is to glorify God. There is nothing more noble nor important than this. This does not impugn the importance of other organizations that do very good things, but it does relativize them. Nothing takes the place of prominence like the church. The church is the bride of Christ...

Take A Look At The Mental Junk Food Colleges Assign Students ...Hundreds of colleges now pick a single book each year for new students to read in the summer before their first semester. Even if some students skip them, these “beach books” tell us a lot. They announce what the college thinks is important and exhibit the college’s best judgment about how well its students can read. They also capture the eagerness with which colleges now try to shape students’ social and political views. Judging from the beach books colleges pick, welcoming students to the adventure of open-minded inquiry is last on the agenda.

For the last six years, the National Association of Scholars has been tracking beach books. My colleague Ashley Thorne began this out of simple curiosity. But the list she drew up drew a lot of attention, and each year after we went deeper into finding out who picked the books and why. This year 350 colleges picked 236 books...

Thursday 4th February saw the launch of a new campaign group which seeks to radically change the teaching and practice of the Church of England in a revisionist direction. LGBTI Mission is a coalition of a number of groups with similar aims; it is led by Simon Sarmiento, the editor of the website ‘Thinking Anglicans’, and its board includes Bishop Alan Wilson, former worship singer/songwriter Vicky Beeching, and Giles Goddard who last year hosted a service of Muslim prayers in his church, as well as other vicars and a church youth and families worker.

The front of their website says their aim is “full acceptance and affirmation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people within the Church of England”. Several reasons are given for this. To start with, “God is love”. Then, the Church has seen change with regard to women priests and Bishops – now is the time for change with regard to views and policies on sexuality and gender. We have a ‘progressive’ Archbishop of Canterbury, they say, who has put sexuality on the church’s main agenda and who has recently apologised for the hurt caused to gay people. But most significant of all, Parliament has opened marriage to same sex couples, and public opinion is in favour of it.

A well produced document details the complaints about the current situation in the Church of England, states what the group would like to see changed, and itemizes some action plans to bring about the revolution. The document claims that the current doctrines and official policy of the Church of England, ie the historic teaching of the Christian faith, does not ‘recognise diversity’ in relation to different views on sexuality, and that this is harmful to many LGBTI Anglicans who have to keep their sexual orientation in the closet. The “one-sided dominant narrative about marriage, human sexuality, and gender complementarity is used a justification of persecution and bullying of LGBTI people”, it says, and calls for radical programmes of change to promote diversity, equality and inclusion in schools, youth groups, theological education and liturgies (for example conducting and blessing of same sex marriages, baptism of children of same sex couples, and ‘re-naming’ after gender transition). The ‘discrimination’ against partnered or married gay men and women in relation to ordination and preferment should be revoked, and should be countered by more appointments of openly gay clergy and Bishops as ‘role models’... (Anglican Mainstream)

There are a lot of empty pews in the Anglican Diocese of Quebec’s churches, but the treasury is fuller than it has been in years.

As shrewd investing is replacing weekly parishioner offerings as a main revenue source, the diocese is looking to ethical investment to build its portfolio in a socially responsible way that better reflects its values...

Anglican Unscripted Episode 217

Feb 11, 2016Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

O Lord, The house of my soul is narrow...

O Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it,
to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord,
and spare Your servant from strange sins.

I gather that the really big news, as always, had to do with a commercial advertisement that was broadcast in the course of the game. Evidently, a potato chip manufacurer, or some such profit-driven purveyor of packaged foodstuffs, showed a video image of an unborn baby. This shocked and appalled the folks at NARAL, the big abortion lobby, who promptly accused the company responsible for the ad of "humanizing the fetus." Since, however, the fetus in the video was, by all accounts, a human fetus, the offspring of human parents, and not a bovine, canine, or feline fetus, it's less than clear how it is that the potato chip company (or whatever it was) is to blame for the humanization. Surely NARAL's complaint would be more fairly lodged against God, or nature, or plain old biological reality.

“Avoid pro-abortion, and use pro-choice instead. Campaigners favour a woman’s right to choose, rather than abortion itself.”

It then tells staff to avoid the term “pro-life” and use “anti-abortion” instead. It does not give a reason why.

The guide, which applies to thousands of BBC journalists across the world, has been slammed by pro-life campaigners who have called it a “violation of journalistic objectivity” and accused the corporation of “gross ignorance”.

China arrests Protestant church leader who opposed removal of crosses ...Supporters of Gu, former chief pastor at Chongyi church, said the government arrested him on trumped-up charges and was punishing him for publicly opposing the removal of church crucifixes. Authorities have taken down hundreds of crosses in Zheijiang, a province on the east coast often described as China’s bible belt...

Free Exercise, Penance, and Delaware Court ...Oh, what a tangled web we weave when judges put asunder what the Founding Fathers joined in the First Amendment! The court’s line of reasoning is worrisome, for three reasons...

Monday, February 08, 2016

Islam's Sword Comes for Christians-Muslim Persecution of Christians, December 2015 Hostility for Christmas was on full display. On Christmas Day, Muslims in Bethlehem, as documented here, set a Christmas tree on fire and greeted the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem with a hail of stones; in Belgium, Muslim "refugees" set fire to a public Christmas tree; in Nigeria, Muslim jihadis attacked churches during Christmas mass and killed at least 16; in the Philippines, on Christmas Eve, Muslim jihadis slaughtered 10 Christians to "make a statement;" in Bangladesh, churches skipped Christmas mass, due to assassination attempts on pastors and death threats against Christians; in Indonesia, churches were on "high alert," with 150,000 security personnel patrolling; in Iran, Christians celebrating Christmas in homes were arrested; and three Muslim countries -- Somalia, Tajikistan, and Brunei -- formally banned any Christmas celebrations...much more

Whatever motives Pyongyang may have about using its rocket launches to develop nuclear-tipped long-range missiles, it now has two satellites circling the Earth, according to NORAD, the North American Aerospace Command, which monitors all satellites in orbit...

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Anglicans Confront Challenge of Islam; The Fellowship of the Suffering...more links

Anglicans Confront Challenge of Islam
Christianity and Islam together comprise the world’s two largest faiths, each monotheistic and centered upon the importance of proselytization – and in many parts of the world, they are on a collision course.

“The prospects for religious war in the next decade are extremely high unless groups like Boko Haram and ISIS are uprooted,” warned Baylor University History Professor Philip Jenkins.

Jenkins, an Episcopalian, was one of seven speakers presenting at the annual Mere Anglicanism Conference January 28-30 at the Charleston Music Hall in Charleston, South Carolina. Mere Anglicanism is the kind of rare event that attracts a cross-section of participants from both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America, as well as overseas Anglicans and the local Diocese of South Carolina...

A.S. Haley: Report on Mere Anglicanism 2016 (Part I) The theme of this year's Mere Anglicanism Conference in Charleston, South Carolina was "The Cross and the Crescent: the Gospel and the Challenge of Islam." Over the course of four sessions, seven speakers gave the sold-out audience a comprehensive view of Islamic ideology and history, along with the understanding and tools which Christians need in their personal dealings with Muslims.

The Conference was carefully balanced. Two of the speakers analyzed the tenets of Islam and their contrasts with those of Christianity; two of the speakers spoke to the historical and present-day conflicts between Islamic countries and Western ones; two offered insights and approaches to discussing religion with followers of Mohammed, garnered from their years of experience in dealing with Muslims from all walks of life; and the seventh speaker offered a moving personal testimony to his own conversion from Islam to Christianity -- a decision which cost him his closest ties to his own family. In order to keep my report easier to follow, I shall divide it into two parts. I will first discuss those speakers who gave analytical and historical critiques of Islam, and then cover those who offered pragmatic advice in the second part....

The Fellowship of The Suffering
Those who previously were uninformed about – or in denial of – the severity of the trials that face Christians around the world have had to come to grips with the graphic images of martyred men in orange jumpsuits on a Libyan seashore. Multiply those martyrs by the millions and spread them throughout punishment and prison camps in North Korea, scorched-earth villages in Sudan, bomb-blasted churches in Pakistan, house churches and police stations in China, corpse-lined streets in northern Nigeria, etcetera, and it’s the Fellowship of The Suffering.

As the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Director for 22 years, I have been privileged to know great sorrow for my persecuted brothers and sisters. The sorrow has been great because the persecution and death of fellow Christians is overwhelming in scale. And some sorrow has been great because it was more personal...

The UN committee declared abortion a “human right” in the woman’s case and said the country was wrong to deny her an abortion, according to Mic. The decision involved the 2001 case of a 17-year-old Peruvian woman whose unborn baby was diagnosed with anencephaly, a neurological condition that is usually fatal, the report states. The young woman, “K.L.,” wanted to abort her unborn baby, but Peruvian doctors refused. Abortion is illegal in Peru except when the life of the mother is threatened.

K.L. later gave birth to her child who lived for four days outside the womb, the report states. K.L.’s mother claimed her daughter “sank into a deep depression” because she was “forced” to allow her baby to live rather than allowed to abort the child, according to the report.

Her case went to the UN committee where her lawyers argued that Peru subjected the young mother to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” by not allowing her to abort her unborn child, the Huffington Post reports. The committee ruled in K.L.’s favor in 2005, and in December 2015, it forced Peru to pay reparations to the young woman, the report states. The UN Human Rights Committee said Peru violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by not allowing K.L. to kill her unborn child. Reports do not indicate the amount that the committee forced Peru to pay the young woman...

The Gospel of John isn't the only book of the Bible being archaeologically verified in the immediate area. As the Review tells readers, "the origins of the Siloam Pool reach back even further in history — at least seven centuries before the time of Jesus."..

The proposed rule, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says that it is aimed at banning discrimination against transgender individuals under the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act...

Why Mass Muslim Migration Eviscerates Western Liberalism ...Indeed, many on the Left have completely abandoned assimilation, which they regard only as a synonym for “racism,” “xenophobia,” and “white supremacy,” while worshipping their religions of multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance. It’s likely because of the global Left’s obsessive, coercive commitment to these principles that German police attempted to cover up the sexual assault epidemic—something authorities in other European nations have also been doing—to protect refugees from any perceived “discrimination.”

While there may be no apparent threat in admitting fleeing Muslim families to the United States, liberals are creating an environment for potentially deadly anti-American sentiment to fester when they encourage migrants to simultaneously preserve their native culture and abhor their new American one.

ISIS and other terror groups have already proven their digital arms extend across the Atlantic and into the United States. The San Bernardino shooters, for instance, were born in the United States but became radicalized domestically, as evidenced by their communication with overseas terror groups prior to the massacre. Who’s to say ISIS or another terror organization won’t similarly manipulate future Muslim-Americans?...

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Anglican Unscripted Episode 216

Feb 2, 2016Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Each Episode Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe. Please Donate - http://anglicanink.com/donate

Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night's attack on Dalori village just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in the northeast, according to survivors and soldiers...

The new receipts show that Planned Parethood charges for each body part obtained, as pro-life advocates had maintained all along...

Their Sexual Proclivities Are Killing Them ...MSM [men who have sex with men] will continue to insist they are just like everyone else. They will insist they have been with their current lover for ten, twenty, thirty years. But even MSM are beginning to admit that this, too, is nothing more than propaganda. Their sally into marital bliss is a sham and not much more. Some call it the “dirty little secret” of the MSM world, that they want the white picket fence and marital fidelity when what they really want are open relationships where they can have multiple partners often quite anonymously.

MSM have wanted desperately to shield the normal population from the reality of their sordid lives and one reason is they do not want us to know how disease ridden is their “community.” Their sexual proclivities are costing the rest of us billions of dollars a year in direct medical costs and billions more in lost productivity. And they will insist all along that their sexual practices cannot change, should not change, since these practices are a part of who they are...

"Our licence committee has approved an application from Dr Kathy Niakan of the Francis Crick Institute to renew her laboratory's research licence to include gene editing of embryos," the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said in a statement.

"As with all embryos used in research, it is illegal to transfer them to a woman for treatment."...

Billions spent, but fewer people are using public transportation in Southern California ...The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the region's largest carrier, lost more than 10% of its boardings from 2006 to 2015, a decline that appears to be accelerating. Despite a $9-billion investment in new light rail and subway lines, Metro now has fewer boardings than it did three decades ago, when buses were the county's only transit option...